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I think the solution needs to be more ambitious. What if the "invention" is not prior art, but other people can come up with the same idea on their own? Does th
by arikrak 15y ago
I think the solution needs to be more ambitious. What if the "invention" is not prior art, but other people can come up with the same idea on their own? Does that deserve to be patented so that the company that was one week late will need to pay patent fees? Maybe the whole patent process should be crowd-sourced and patents should only be granted if no one can think of the same idea.
(I discuss this more here: http://zappable.com/2011/08/how-to-fix-the-patent-system/ http://zappable.com/2011/08/how-to-fix-the-patent-system/)
- alttag 15y ago> What if the "invention" is not prior art, but other > people can come up with the same idea on their own? Then at the very least, it's evidence for obviousness, which (although a tougher sell) can also invalidate a patent. EDIT: IANAL
- prodigal_erik 15y agoUnfortunately "obvious" in patent law tends to mean there is published work suggesting putting stuff together in that way. If nobody has discussed the problem (e.g., you were the first to work on it), it somehow doesn't matter that anyone competent would have promptly settled on the same solution you did, and we aren't getting anything of value in return for your generation-long monopoly on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness#Teaching-suggestion-motivation_.28TSM.29_test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousn...